METAPHORS AND SITUATIONS

Abstract

In his paper the author starts from »situation semantics« and understands meaning as arising from relations between situations, called »constraints«. Human beings are attuned to constraints and exploit them in order to learn from given situations about other situations. A thought expressed by a metaphorical utterance is a thought which would normally correspond to its literal meaning. Metaphor involves a correlation between situations and these correlations are what is sought after when one interprets a certain metaphor.